


Rosaceae

by Deuterosis



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Bullying, Cannibalism, Gen, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Animal Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Murder, Mutilation, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Revenge, Sexual Abuse, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:28:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28945176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deuterosis/pseuds/Deuterosis
Summary: Things that could have happened at the 2nd Academy.  (Explicit only just in case.)
Kudos: 3
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I almost didn't finish this one because it made _me_ extremely uncomfortable - but I like to finish what I start, and for some reason I felt as if it was important. Plus, it fits the “Bullying” square to a T. I hope it's at least evasive enough.
> 
> Really, don't read this if it's going to upset you.
> 
> My goal was to... well, you'll get the idea if you get to the ending. I don't actually think the 2nd was this bad for Mutsuki, but it's not hard to imagine how it could turn out that way.
> 
> One thought; bullying is bullying without exception, _even_ if someone thinks it's not because “the target deserves it”.

Relief, and guilt.

Guilt, and relief.

Not many years ago, Mutsuki Toru's family was slain by a ghoul, leaving one out of four. Not an uncommon story. Still less uncommon was the way this orphan had been funneled into the Commission of Counter-Ghoul. There he had housing - but not a home.

"Mutsuki."

There was a rumor that followed, coming out of the mist of that dark day to settle in the 2nd Academy where Mutsuki was educated. The glares of the fellow investigators in training who believed it haunted him -- and all of them believed it.

"Heeeere, kitty, kitty."

He was always an outsider and a standout, against these healthy, fit young men mostly taller and paler and more sturdily built. That alone might have been reason enough to put him at the fringes. The rumor simply destroyed the chance at anything better.

By itself, it haunted him. Not even by what it implied about him, but the way a strange spot inside him was relieved by the ghoul's actions, and doused the rest with guilt, all things he had to be made aware of when the other boys whispered. 

"Do your ears not work? Pay attention."

The instinct of stress is called fight-or-flight, but when it stirred, Mutsuki could do neither.

"You like men, don't you?"

"Um...." No, I don't.

He can sense, they are about to demonstrate why.

While his mind was away they had disarmed him, to his horror as one of his tormentors holds up his knife. "This isn't new, but the color is. Where did this blood come from?"

"I don't know...." The muscles in his hands clutch his tunic.

They shove him towards the dirt, face down this time.

"You know what this is for, right?"

"I didn't do it...."

Some fabric descends. His heart clogs his throat in an instant, eyes going down to the dirt, and still he can't seem to do anything, especially with a hand on his hair. A flash of violence peppers his gums, out of nowhere.

"Go ahead and bite. I dare you to bite me."

Above, Mutsuki can hear the knife flick open, foreign hands on his only possession themselves a violation. Allegedly, that knife is for protection: allegedly, he is learning to fend off Ghouls. But all that seems to wash away, as though somewhere he'd learned the lesson it's better, easier, less painful to stop resisting.

"Go on! If you don't do it, he'll cut you with that bloody knife."

"I will," the holder agrees, waving the weapon between his fingers.

It seems familiar already, but that can't be so. Mutsuki would remember something like this.

The hands come, and oddly, his primary terror is the fact that their bearers will see the facts. But they don't notice right away, because all that's exposed is enough for what they want. Mutsuki is eventually left shivering like he's been dunked and held in cold water. _Okay, I've done it... I've done everything you wanted. Please, please stop it there...._

"Take off his shirt. I want to see what it'll look like on his chest."

He whines as his shapeless coat is opened, wet shirt is removed.

"What's this?"

Their eyes reevaluated him, as if he stopped being a human, even a shitty one, and transformed into some strange animal. The nature of their stares doesn't change, though, save to light up with new cruelty.

"Weeell. We won't tell, huh?"

"No, we won't tell."

"In fact, we'll help you...."

One of the pack leaves to find, apparently, a tree branch. He chooses it carefully and in full view of the captive, rooting for one that's not wider than two pencils, but ridged with protrusions.

"What are you going to do with that?" Mutsuki's not the one who asked.

"What do you think?"

"That's messed up," but he's snickering.

"Yeah, well. That's what happens to sickos."

There are enough to hold him down still and cover his mouth when he screams, with some left over to hold him wide.

* * *

He considered using the knife only briefly. Because that would hurt. Severely.

There are infections to consider... He knows.

He has no choice but to go to a physician on staff, present for when the would-be Ghoul killers inevitably get hurt.

People can be funny. They assume that all same-sex segregation provides a barrier against abuses. They assume that having a same-sex physician tend to the according youth will help prevent any problems, mild or major. Which immediately presents a problem in this case.

However, he doesn't feel he can ask for a female doctor.

There's only one male doctor in the facilities he thinks he can ask for. The one who seemed nicest, the one whose passing gaze didn't instantly make Mutsuki's skin crawl. He notes immediately that Mutsuki can't sit, eyebrow raising.

"I... have something caught."

He still doesn't quite get it. It's unavoidable that the problem is too unusual to be obvious from vague statements.

"Down."

Slowly it starts to dawn. "...I know your situation, but if it's a matter of that kind of pain, I have to look."

"I know." It's fine, this is a doctor, it's his job. He doesn't seem to have those eyes, those eyes that are judging, weighing.

The forms that pass naked under his gaze are meat, but in the neutral way.

The doctor puts him in stirrups and the white sky cradles like a sea. Putting Mutsuki far away from here, although the doctor doesn't need to do much invasive before he finds the problem. It's no doubt the first he's seen of anything like this, even out of the 2nd Academy.

"Did you do this?"

"Yes," he answered, clutching the sheets.

The doctor's voice has alarm, yet there's no reproach. Mutsuki is tuned to hear scorn and disapproval, so he knows.

"I don't think I can remove this without hurting you. Unless I were to anesthetize you."

"Go ahead."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Anything so it doesn't hurt.

And if something goes wrong, if he doesn't wake up, then that's fine.

Things happened at the detention center, too.

There were not only female guards at the girls' prison.

Although, even then....

Light clouds of ghosts drift in and out of existence. They come perilously close to consciousness out of the dark reaches. Grabbing for him like hands.

He both wants to fight and doesn't want to fight. He wants to do battle against the inevitable, but realizes its inevitability.

Realizes there has never been a real place for him in this world.... All he does is occupy it, awkwardly at the sides, while others enjoy full and happy lives. He is in fact a parasite.

A parasite that too wants to continue living.

And yet kind of does not, at the same time.

Mutsuki awakes and isn't sure if he's disappointed or not. The stick removal went perfectly. He's on painkillers and antibiotics, which must be why it no longer hurts.

Even now the doctor's tone is gentle, searching.

"Why did you do it?"

 _Make up a decent lie,_ he thinks immediately, even though it makes him feel rotten for doing so to someone pleasant. Even the fact of having that thought, of formulating the lie, has to disappear into the pit that makes it "Truth" even as it happens. He's become adept at vanishing facts even to himself.

"I... I was trying to plug it up." I haven't been raped. I've never been raped.

The doctor's expression drooped.

He leans down on one knee so he can be more on-level.

"Four more years." He took Mutsuki's hand and patted it on the back. "Four more years, and you can do something about it medically. Try to hang in there until then, okay?"

"Yes, sir." He doesn't know. He has no idea.

* * *

Just as Mutsuki was contemplating the end again -- even though he was never able to reach it, many tries before -- a bit of light broke through the overcast monotony of his life. A new Quinque instructor, with hair like sesame pudding. When his hands brush against, they move naturally, making poses of war into something like dance. When his eyes go over, they judge form, not body.

He seems to have this air of familiarity even though they'd never met. Like they could understand each other.

One day, this day, Instructor Sasaki stays late, extending into lunch. He stands at the side of the cafeteria, briefly talking to some CCG staff. After they leave, before Sasaki can also vanish, Mutsuki approaches him with the pretense of a question. They get to talk for quite a while, until Sasaki notices the student's empty hands.

"Aren't you hungry?"

That's a complicated question. His stomach is growling, or was. But that was all Mutsuki had to go on.

"Um...."

"You do have to eat, you know," he insists softly. "If you don't, you'll have a hard time doing anything. Thinking, moving, living... especially fighting."

"I guess I'll have something."

But when Sasaki comes back with a tray, having let Mutsuki rest near the wall, the sight of the heap on its way fills him with nausea. His stomach felt rotted from the inside since before he came in. He wants to backtrack: "No, you don't understand, Instructor, I don't know if I can keep that down. I feel sick."

But he also doesn't want to refuse, not really. This is one of the few people to be genuinely nice to him, besides the doctor before, whose job it is to care about his patients' health and intactness. (So it kind of didn't count.)

As Sasaki sits next to him in a gentle, almost parental way, Mutsuki tries to shovel in the vegetables and rice.

"Is that better?"

"Actually, yes."

It seems to have to do with this friendly, calming man sitting right nearby, but he does feel a bit better for having something solid in his stomach. The food stayed down without effort even after work summoned him and he had to leave.

_I wonder if, if I was with him, even I could be different._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truncated a part after the doctor visit; in the end I decided it wasn't really worth showing that this continued in so many words, but I do feel something of value is lost because this passage also included acknowledgement of Mutsuki's jar. To gain the best of both worlds, I've included this slightly-incomplete part here in the notes. Feel free to not read it if you don't want, though.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [by a river, Mutsuki leaves and digs up the jar] Without really seeing what he has in his arms, he curls around it for comfort. In his head, there are squirming kittens, friendly and nonjudgemental. Covering him like a purring blanket. They don't hate him. In fact, they love him for no reason at all.
> 
> Unfortunately, he's never been taught how to show affection. The only example is violence and neglect, and that's what took root, far below the surface where he made himself only faintly aware of it. Even if he tries, he can't formulate any other image of how to respond to the cats that walk up to you without guile. And deep down he certainly knows that's a tragedy.
> 
> Fortunately, he has not met any kittens. That is helpful.


	2. Chapter 2

For some ghoul investigators it could be more of a paycheck rather than a calling, even though there were easier things to do if you didn't need millions of yen. Yubuki Kuranosuke simply couldn't really imagine doing anything else.

Although he did think otherwise when his partner assigned was Rank 1 Investigator Mutsuki, of all people. Mutsuki Toru, the cat killer? Dares to show his face and say they'll work together?

But there's no complaining about it. After all, Suzuya wasn't any better. And now he's reformed, so everything's different. That's more or less how it is in the CCG. Mutsuki "himself" stood out among the Quinx enough to be chosen for missions like the scouting of Aogiri's stronghold -- so there's no accounting for skill.

Mutsuki informed him that the ghoul's been skulking in the park they're now in, but something about this feels off. All he can see is a lot of trees -- not even any evidence that anything shaped like a person commonly went through here.

"Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Well, we may have come in from the wrong side."

He can't even speak for a moment. Is Mutsuki that much of a flake as an investigator?!

"What does this Ghoul look like, anyway?"

"Well, he's a Bikaku whose Kagune looks like a scorpion's tail."

"Okay."

"His skin is dark."

"Dark skin."

"And his hair is white."

"White hair...."

"He's a Quinx."

The thrust of Mutsuki's point ran him through. One predator to another.

A step ahead, before his hand can even bolt for his Quinque, Mutsuki has him wrapped in that scorpion tail.

"Don't you remember him from the academy? He was a toy to you."

Without giving the capture a chance to answer, Mutsuki slams him against a tree, and the stars in his head fill his mouth, preventing him from screaming.

"You're supposed to be a promising human investigator. So what's with this?" Mutsuki spreads his arms, mostly a head and shoulders on the ground. "You couldn't even dodge the first attack." His sardonic yet bored expression doesn't match at all with the scared creature of just five years ago.

Yubuki sees his fate fall before him like a tower of cards. It's sheer karma, he has to admit. The only possible way out could be the truth.

"Wait, I.... I know what this is about."

"Oh, really?"

"Th-the 2nd Academy, right? Look, I know what I did to you was wrong. But I was just a kid. A messed-up kid."

"What a coincidence. I was just a messed-up kid too. And I know what I was doing was wrong." Mutsuki's hands hold each other as if to say Isn't That a Thing. "Do you forgive me, then?"

He swallows. It costs nothing to say the correct words. In fact it's a talent all those who live in Japan must cultivate.

"O-of course I can forgive you."

Mutsuki keeps his eyes on his capture, knifelike expression giving way to a small smile and chuckle. Yubuki's never seen him look cheerful even once. It's skin-crawling.

"Liar."

Next Yubuki hits the stick-laden forest floor -- impact carefully shy of knocking him out or killing him.

"If you'd been honest, I was thinking about letting you go."

His mouth hangs open as if in speech. Nothing can come out. He's speechless because there's simply nothing to say. Back then, in their twisted version of right and wrong, of what was deserved punishment for vile acts, none had considered the logic might come back to haunt them.

"You know, you were right all along. I _did_ kill my parents. Do you know why?"

As if he could respond to that abrupt confession. To that unsettling smile.

"My father would have joined you boys if he'd been there."

Suddenly the shy self-contained "boy" who did such awful things took on a new meaning, with just that one stream of words.

"Oh, _now_ you feel bad? It's okay to beat him up and stick your cock down his throat if he's done something evil, but if he was already a _victim_ , well, that changes things, doesn't it?"

Now Mutsuki carefully removes his eyepatch. There doesn't seem to be any reason he should need it, because that eye doesn't glaze over with black and red until the second he wants it to.

"So, that means we must agree. What I'll do now is completely justified."

* * *

Eventually, all liars must confront the truth.

Or, rather, rejecting the truth caused Mutsuki nothing but trouble.

In the end the lies crumbled away like rotten foundation and left him with the glaring abyss. The only thing left to do is swan-dive inside.

There's no reason to drop the facade around friends. They deserve to have no one else taken away.

But between himself and the people who deserve his blades... Well, now, that's a different story.

First, you cut out the tongue, and the vocal cords for good measure. Really, it's the cords that are more pragmatic. The tongue is an appetizer in multiple ways. Even he doesn't understand why, truly and honestly, but they get him fired up.

 _Then_ his body is ready.

He takes his time, practicing his craft, like long ago -- only, in his defense, he used to kill quickly, and _then_ carve. Partly because cats make loud sounds and have sharp claws that could hurt him, but partly because that was his mercy that he granted them. Maybe the tenderness he displayed in the Chateau was real, to an extent: perhaps it might have belonged to a gentle girl who grew up in Not That House.

Alas, what's done is done. And if it was not a total lie, it was a pleasant veneer over the ugly truth.

Once Mutsuki has stabbed in all the locations that don't immediately kill a man, chomping back pleasure at multiple intervals, it's time to dispose of the quivering, crying, snot-leaking evidence. Fortunately, Ghouls have this built-in, and it's convenient.

It is true: Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Hungrier than expected, he has no trouble taking as much as possible, delaying the death for as long as possible, gulping sweet mouthfuls of ambrosia adrenaline, but leaving nothing for later that can't -- bone included -- be shredded into the smallest bits and buried deep. Everything must go. Hair and nails, cartilage and brain, shriveled smelly dick. It all has to disappear completely.

Until there is nothing for the CCG to confirm.

He took what little cash there was from the wallet -- for Shirazu's sister, better use -- and buried the ID and other useless things where no one would think to look, far away from the remains deep in the woods. It's only then, when his own adrenaline has ebbed to relative normalcy and the peaceful night sung in his ears that he felt sure no one would ever find out.

"All right... Six more to go."

He'll space them out, so he doesn't all of a sudden gain noticeable weight.

Yubuki is heavy in his guts, just like before.


End file.
